3 Ways You Can Have the Most Effective Performance Reviews
There's nothing more frustrating than working on a team where the leader doesn't communicate with the rest of the group. As a leader, this can be a daunting task. The best way to communicate with your employees is to conduct regular performance reviews. This gives you a standard to measure your employees' performance without being too subjective. It also gives your employees a chance to communicate with you in an honest and comfortable environment.
What is a Performance Review?
"Performance Review" sounds like such a formal task. It's as simple as meeting one-on-one with each of your employees to discuss their work. In an effective performance review, supervisors can set clear expectations and goals with their employees, and employees can communicate directly with their supervisors. This is a good chance for both employees and supervisors to be accountable for their work.
How Can You Have Effective Performance Reviews?
1. Create a Comfortable Environment
When conducting performance reviews, it's important to create a comfortable environment. Be sure to tell your employees these meetings are confidential. They'll be more apt to speak openly. Consistency is another integral part of good meetings. Set a specific and regular time for each employee's performance review. Some businesses do them once a week, but you could do them monthly or quarterly. When conducting a performance review, do it privately from your other employees, turn your phone to silent, and minimize any other distractions. Do everything you can to keep this meeting comfortable and not intimidating.
Before you have your scheduled meeting, you and your employees should both fill out this form.
This allows you and your employees to have a better understanding of their and your quality of work. You can both examine what you'd like to discuss during the meeting prior to it. This way, you don't have to worry about forgetting to talk about something major.
2. Be Clear, Constructive, and Positive
When discussing your employee's work performance, you need to be clear, constructive, and positive. Be clear about what you expect of them. Don't be overly negative or sugarcoat what you mean to say. When you correct them, be constructive. Show them how to be better and make sure they understand. The most important part of this meeting is positivity. Start with the positive and end with the positive. They should never feel degraded or less-than.
3. Give Your Employees Time to Talk
Allow your employees to discuss whatever they like with you. This is when they can air grievances, ask about raises, or discuss their goals. Most people have a hard time saying negative things directly to you. Ask them questions! Ask them how they feel about your expectations -- are they clear and reasonable? Ask them about how they feel about their performance. Allow them to have an open and honest platform without judgment.
Performance reviews are an incredibly important part of open communication between leadership and employees. It's time for you to speak with your employees openly and for your employees to communicate with you openly. They don't have to guess what you're feeling or worry about their performance. Performance reviews are a great way to keep open lines of communication in your business.
Tell us how you communicate with your employees in the comments! We love hearing from you.
